When can you hold local body polls, HC asks TN Govt

The Madras High Court today sought from the State Election Commission the possible time frame to conduct the local bodies polls.

A bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar sought by August 1 the poll panel's time frame for the elections.

"Assuming that the impediments like census, delimitation, population etc are out of the way, what is the possible time frame, the SEC requires to conduct the election," the bench asked from the poll panel, while seeking its stand on the issue by August 1.

Senior counsel B Kumar, appearing for the SEC, said the commission required 50 days from the date of issuing notification.

It may be recalled that following DMK's plea, the Madras High Court had last year held the civic poll notification scheduling elections on October 17 and 19, 2016 null and void.

The DMK had sought among other prayers, appropriate reservation as per the latest census and rotation of seats according to the norms.

The State government preferred an appeal later.

When the case came up for hearing, Kumar, submitted that it was not possible to implement some of the directions of the single judge. The directions include one on scanning and uploading affidavits of all candidates on website.

As there would be around 4.90 lakh candidates, whose affidavits could run between six to 10 pages, they cannot be scanned and uploaded on its website within three days, he contended.

Advocate General R Muthukumaraswamy submitted that the consultation process with the SEC on holding polls would be completed soon.

The state government had incurred a loss of Rs 175 crore due to the cancellation of the local body elections.

If the elections were to be conducted after delimitation, a sum of Rs 45 crore would have to be spent, he pointed out.

Senior counsel P Wilson, appearing for the DMK, submitted that the Supreme Court had on three occasions said the SEC can go ahead with election and it was not preventing them from conducting the elections.

Contending that delimitation could be done after the elections also, he said the SEC cannot say delimitation has to be done before the election.

Some of the directions, which SEC finds difficult to implement were either suggestion or recommendatory in nature, said Wilson adding that the SEC cannot cite this as an excuse for not conducting the election immediately.

The bench then posted the matter for further hearing on August 1.

Opposing the extension of the tenure of Special officers of local bodies and not holding the elections, DMK had filed the present petition to direct the SEC to hold the local body elections within the time frame as may fixed by the court.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)